Angel's Farm Reflection 10

Angel Arias                  Silk Tree Farm Reflection                    4/23/13

Today, lamentably, was a somber rainy day, for the most part anyway. So it probably would have not been too much fun to be outside all day. Therefore, it took us a while to figure out what we were going to do, and Tom told me about the plywood that he had bought at the Re-Store down at Habitat For Humanity down the road. Apparently, plywood is usually pretty expensive, but since it is the Re-Store and they probably didn’t need it anyway, it was selling for five dollars a piece, and the boards themselves were 4x8 each. Being so huge, they were supported by nails, bolts and 2x4s, a whole lot of supply for a modest price. Take it all apart and you have a whole bunch of work to do, as well as a whole bunch of supplies. Now this all seemed pretty cool and handy, but Tom also told me that he had bought forty of them.
So let me break it down:
Forty 4x8 plywood boards
Two people
A truck, a trailer
A short distance
And we ended up decided on five boards every trip

So altogether, eight trips loading and if you count the unloading, eight unloading sessions as well.
40/5= 8

Now don’t get me wrong it wasn’t really too arduous, really, but what I was trying to convey was the amount of time it took to unload all of it. Even considering that we gradually became better at the whole loading/unloading process in and of itself, driving there and back, loading and unloading all in all was a pretty gangly process.

Additionally, we stopped halfway through and had lunch. So it wasn’t really a straight-shot job.

But at the end of the day (and I mean that quite literally) we were finished moving and unloading all of the plywood. Actually, we were pulling in the driveway with the last load when it was time for me to leave. But before I touch on that, let me say another thing; the intended use for all this neat plywood. It was intended to be used to create some sort of storage shed, perhaps for hay or for tools, or both, but something more or less along those lines. The only thing I can think of that would make that a pain would be lugging the hay down the goat pen, but then again, I actually don’t know where the construction of the shed would even be. Maybe next time, we’ll be working on that, figuring out where that shed would be or maybe we’d just be building it, which could be fun.
When considering that the day was kind of sullen weather-wise, I’d say that we got what we needed to get done finished – and it wasn’t so bad. I’m just hoping that on Thursday, the weather is better and we’ll get to be outside so we can get a lot of outdoor work done.

As a last note, I got to see the baby chicks that had been moved into the space where the other laying hens were, and I also got to see the plants that we had planted before Spring break, which were starting to sprout and come up. I think that was a really cool experience for me, because I think I got to see the work we did start to pay off, and that is one of the greatest moments when you’re farming. Getting to see your hard work come to a rewarding culmination…but I’ll have to wait longer a bit for that full experience.